Monthly Archives: December 2020

PUT ON THE NEW SELF

Bible Study, ,

PUT ON THE NEW SELF

That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:20-24).

Paul used the word ‘taught’ twice and ‘learned’ once in these few verses. This indicates the important place that learning and teaching play in a believer’s life. Unfortunately, many new Christians are expected to make their own way in their new lives, leaving them open to false ideas and vulnerable to ‘every wind of teaching’ that blows from every possible source today. Their minds are filled with a hotchpotch of confused ideas which gives them no direction fro living godly lives.

Every believer should be taught, not only the truths about the life and death of Jesus and the salvation He freely offers those who receive Him, but also the practical application of their faith in Him. Paul referred to their need to put off their old selves. What did he mean?

Were his readers aware of the reason for their sinful lives before they came to Christ? Did they know that they had inherited the nature of Adam? How important that they are taught God’s truth from the beginning. Our world has been filled with the pernicious teaching that man is just a product of evolution. According to scientific theory, there is no such thing as creation and no such person as the Creator. Humans are nothing more than superior apes! In some mysterious and unproven way, we appeared on the earth after millions of years of ‘natural selection’.

For the many thinking people, this theory leaves us with more unanswered questions than answers. Through their blindness and stubborn unbelief, scientists have spawned a universal lie which nullifies human responsibility towards their Creator. However, no matter how big or convincing the lie, or how many people have fallen for it, lies do not cancel the truth. Sin came into the world through the disobedience of one man and brought the entire human race into condemnation and subject to death.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned —
13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come. Romans 5:12-14

Paul’s readers needed to know that sin corrupted their old nature and made it impossible for them to have any connection with their Creator.  Jesus, the Son of God, whom the Father sent in human form to live a perfect life and to die as a substitute for sinful man, is God’s remedy for sin. Those who believe in Him and receive Him as Lord are released from the power of sin. He gives them a new nature and a new life, powered by His Holy Spirit to live in submission and obedience to Him.

Every child of God has the potential to be like his Master and to live new lives of righteousness and holiness. What does that mean? Although it is impossible for humans always to do the right thing, Jesus has given us the gift of His righteousness – His perfect obedience to the Father – which covers our sinfulness. We have a new standing before God. We are free to approach Him with confidence because He sees only the perfection of Jesus covering us. We are freed from the power of sin to act in our everyday circumstances as Jesus would act. The Holy Spirit in us is the same Spirit that enabled Him to live a life of perfect obedience to God.

It was Paul’s task, and the task of every spiritual leader to teach, the believers how to live out the righteousness which Jesus had imparted to them. Just as one would undress at the end of the day and toss aside the soiled clothing, so Paul instructed his readers to take off their old sinful selves. The blood of Jesus had dealt with their past. Forgiven and cleansed, they were free to don new garments – the garments of righteousness and holiness.

In practical terms, this meant that every time they had to make a choice between doing the wrong thing and doing the right thing, they were free to choose to do right because they were ‘wearing’ their new selves, recreated in the image of their Creator.

Let’s simplify this idea even more. Selfishness and greed are the characteristics of the old nature. Before we came to Christ, we based every decision and choice on these two dominating influences. When Christ came into our lives, He gave us His new self, with the qualities of mercy and generosity which are the hallmark of God’s nature. We are to put on these qualities, that chooses to act in mercy and generosity in every situation just as deliberately as we would put on clean clothes in the morning.

Living this way rather than gratifying the desires and demands of our sinful nature is a process of learning. Every decision and choice we make to do the right thing will strengthen our new nature and weaken our old nature. We will grow up into maturity in Christ as surely as a child grows to mature adulthood.

Do not lie to each other since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator (Col. 3:9-10).

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3, eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

SENSUALITY AND GREED

Bible Study, ,

SENSUALITY AND GREED

So I tell you this, and insist on I in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed (Eph. 4: 17-19).

Paul used two words to sum up the lifestyle of the pagan Gentiles – sensuality and greed. The same description is applicable and apt for the godless world in which we live today. The human heart has not changed. Every generation, from the fall of Adam, lives for sin and self. Every society under the sun is in chaos and disarray for the same reasons – sensuality and greed.

As the unique and supreme creation of God (not some superior ape that has evolved from our monkey “cousins”) made in His image to reflect His glory, God has given us one overriding instruction which encapsulates everything we are to be.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Deut. 6:5).

However, another master claims our allegiance. Satan tricked the first pair into believing his word over the word of their Creator and introduced them to a new trend – disobedience and rebellion in the place of loving obedience and submission to their Maker. They became lovers of self, not lovers of God. Sensual pleasures and greedy selfishness now dominates the human race.

By the way, I was amused to read, in a glossy woman’s magazine, the latest diagnosis for marital disharmony which used to be the outcome of selfishness. It is now called “post-romantic stress disorder”! Trust the psychiatrists to come up with a neat way for people to dodge responsibility and for them to make money. Just imagine how much more cash will flow into their coffers while they “counsel” their clients about their post-romantic stress disorder. How much better to teach them to grow up and stop living for themselves at the expense of their spouses!

Of course, like a leopard, we cannot change our “spots”. Only the Holy Spirit can transform our hearts through the forgiveness and new life Jesus came to give us. Ezekiel prophesied that God would do a miracle in the hearts of His people to transform them from stony-hearted, selfish and disobedient idolaters to loving and submissive children of God.

For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws (Ez. 36: 24-27).

God fulfilled this promise through His Son. According to Paul,

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here (2 Cor. 5: 17).

Since God has done the miracle of transformation, our responsibility is to put it into practice in our everyday lives. New hearts produce new attitudes and new behaviour. Jesus said that it is the fruit that reveals the nature of the root. If we are still living like we did before we began to follow Jesus, satisfying our sensual appetites and living only to provide for ourselves, a question hangs over the reality of our profession. Here is the test:

Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation – but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if, by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God (Rom. 8: 12-14).

If we do not produce the proof of a new heart, our profession means nothing. Paul urged his Ephesian readers to respond in faith to the transformation God had accomplished through the power of the gospel at work in them. According to him, they were no longer classified as “Gentiles” because together with the title came the expectation that they would behave like Gentiles, living sensual and greedy lives.

They had become part of a new culture and an alternative society, living under the title of “children of God”. They had stepped over from the realm of “lovers of self” to “lovers of God”, a love which replaced all other loves and changed their hearts from greed to generosity, from selfishness to selfless service because they were followers of Jesus and reflectors of His nature.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3, eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.